


Chinese Medicine

by stateofintegrity



Series: Atonement [1]
Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:55:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23985646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity
Summary: He has heard rumors about the methods of torture employed by the North Koreans. He hopes like hell that the worst rumors are just that.An aid station is overrun and some of the 4077th's personnel wind up in enemy hands. It's a long road back.
Relationships: Maxwell Klinger/Charles Emerson Winchester III
Series: Atonement [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1938676
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	Chinese Medicine

**Author's Note:**

> Four important things:
> 
> 1\. I did some research on war crimes for this, but this is fiction. I am not trying to implicate/accuse any real or historical people of anything. 
> 
> 2\. People suffer in this one. If that will make you suffer, please don't read. I am not out to upset anyone, anywhere.
> 
> 3\. I would love to see this relationship develop, but given the events, this would take time. If you have any thoughts or advice for a sequel, I would love to hear from you!
> 
> 4\. Thank you to Im_writing_out_of_time for beta help and being a fandom friend!

“Winchester, we’re in triage here!”

“Please, Colonel. I just need a moment of Dr. Pierce’s time.” Either his decision to give his colleague his title or the rank desperation in his eyes wins out and Potter acquiesces with a gruff, “Pierce, go with ‘im.”

Already bloody with checking incoming wounded, Pierce goes. “Pierce, I know you owe me nothing. I know you don’t care for me, but I will pay you, I will get down on my knees in the dirt right here, just please...”

“Charles, you’re not making any sense.”

The tears come when he needs them least, filling the channels he needs for speech. He fights them. “Please keep Corporal Klinger sedated until he can be sent home or until I can be transferred.”

It snaps into place. Hawkeye remembers the announcements coming over the PA. Captured doctor. Prisoners to be included with incoming wounded. “The _two of you_ were captured?” His fingers fly up and down his body, probing. “You need to be part of triage, Charles! C’mon, let’s get you on a litter!”

“Pierce, please, no. I’m not hurt badly. I can help.” His eyes beg. “At least let me help Klinger. Let me assist you.”

“Charles, there’s something dark and ugly here, isn’t there? I see it in your eyes.”

He nods, sobs. “Please, Pierce.”

He has heard rumors about the methods of torture employed by the North Koreans. He hopes like hell that the worst rumors are just that. “Okay. I’ll clear it with Potter, but you’re assisting, okay? That’s it! With your hands shaking like that, I doubt you could hand me an instrument. And when it’s done, you and I are going into the showers and you’re letting me do a full exam - got it?”

Charles is uncharacteristically meek with gratitude. “Thank you.”

Pierce keeps a hawk’s eye on the assistant he’s drafted as they scrub up, but the shields Charles has used throughout his life hold - marble-bright, impenetrable, dangerous as the sea - even though his face is bruised and his soul is engulfed by storms.

And his hands do stay steady. Not Boston General head of thoracic surgery steady, but beyond competent. Halfway through, he halts Pierce long enough to speak into his ear. Hawkeye’s face goes white as his mask.

He pitches his voice so low that no one but Winchester can hear it. “Tell me _right now_ why I shouldn’t use this scalpel to unearth your blue-blood pumping excuse for a heart. Do it fast.”

Charles’ eyes are on fire; blue flames waver and dance in their agonized depths. “They had a gun to his head, Pierce. They gave me three choices. I could refuse and they would shoot him. I could hesitate and they would use a bayonet.”

“You chose life.”

Potter notices their stillness. “Pierce!” he barks. “There wounded are piled up out there like cordwood. Get a move on!”

It’s an exaggeration, but he knows what Klinger means to these men; hell, he knows what Klinger means to him. Unfortunately, in these moments, a good surgeon must put his heart on ice and act. Pierce straightens and snaps him a salute. Potter holds his gaze, conveys the message: _I am counting on you to save both of them, lad. You’re the best we’ve got_. Potter doesn’t know what happened to his men in captivity but he knows broken. He knows guilt and pain. Winchester is the former and wears the latter and if his head is bowed, now, for any other reason than to hide tears, Potter vows to eat his boots. Surgery is happening in the OR as it always does. Life is fought for and death is staved off. This time, there’s atonement, too.

***

Hours pass. Pierce never does allow Winchester to fly solo, but he sends the nurse away and uses his fellow surgeon as wingman as body after body comes beneath his knife. At least there are fewer bodies to tend, this time, than there have been during past deluges; Hawkeye is able to break away and lead Winchester to the showers at 1AM when the moon is high.

“I don’t suppose you can be persuaded that this is quite unnecessary?” There is no force behind the words.

“Nope.” He turns both showers on full blast, choosing to disregard those who may be without warm water in the morning. He wants the curtain of sound the rushing water will create. “Strip.”

Charles obeys but his hands are clumsy; Pierce suspects he’s being held together by force of will and a few rusted scraps of baling wire - maybe a piece of duct tape or two. Pierce doesn’t gasp at the evidence of torture that is revealed, he’s already seen to Klinger, but his eyes are cold. Hard.

It takes effort to speak. “Please tell me you got off a shot, Charles. Tell me you took down one of them.” His voice is a broken piece of glass scraping his throat raw.

“I always understood you to disapprove of firearms, Pierce, especially in the hands of life-givers.”

“I always have.” He’s hard at work, examining, assessing. “There are broken ribs here, you know. You should have told me! How the hell did you stay on your feet and operate with broken ribs!?!”

“I had to see... I had to know he would live. Thank you for keeping him sedated.”

“I should be doing you the same favor.” He helps him dress, noting every wince. He knows what’s happening; the adrenaline has begun to drain away. Pain stands ready to take its place. “Come on. This way. You need to sit before you fall.”

They sit against porous walls of hastily constructed concrete under a tin roof. “Do you want me to get Father Mulcahy?” Pierce asks. “Or Sidney? Colonel Potter?”

“No. I will have to make a full report to the colonel, of course. I hope to do it in writing, however.” He massages a sprained wrist. “Provided I can hold a pen.”

“I’ll write it. But you need to tell it, Charles. It’s the only way to get its fangs out of you.” He has chosen the metaphor deliberately; the venom glands on this snake are still full.

Charles shakes his head but knows he is defeated. He was the moment he asked for help. “Pierce, please. No.”

It’s dirty pool, but Hawkeye doesn’t care. “It might help me treat Klinger.”

Charles bows his head. “Once,” he says. “I’ll tell it once.”

Pierce’s eyes are bright with emotion. “You’re a good doctor, Charles. Come on. You need blankets and cognac.”

Winchester hesitates. “Hunnicutt... Pierce, I cannot...” Facing Pierce is torture; he cannot bear another pair of eyes. The pressure of a second gaze will shatter him.

“He’s on rounds until 7. It will just be us. Now lean on me, huh?” It’s slow going, but Pierce is able to install Charles in the bunk he’d vacated just five days before. He places a blanket over Charles’s knees. In a show of normalcy they both see through but both appreciate, he also dons his bathrobe as if this is a regular conversation taking place after a regular shift. He even places his liquor of choice in his hands. Charles stares as if seeing something foreign. That look tells Pierce many things.

“You didn’t think you were coming back, did you?”

“No. Not once the beatings began. Before that...”

“Wait. Start when you left here. You two were headed for battalion aid 8. Did you make it?”

“Yes. Unfortunately, we made it in time for the position to be swept. I’m sure you treated the men we were able to send down. Klinger and I were in a troop transport. I was seeing to wounded. I don’t know what happened next. A mine, maybe. A shell. I was unconscious for a time.”

Pierce sees the way that guilt convulses him. “Charles, you aren’t Superman.”

Winchester knows he is right, “But I left him alone! In their hands! You know how frightened he is just to _be_ here! “ His head sinks into his hands and he fists at his hair, nearly tearing it in an almost Biblical show of frustration. “I... I cannot say what he endured during that interval. I did not have the opportunity to ask.”

He fights off the image of Klinger’s worried face, the soot and blood marking him.

“They found my kit bag. One of the other prisoners acted as interpreter for them when they ordered me to see to their wounded. I was able to bargain, to keep Klinger with me.” Cold fingers enclose his heart. “I fear that doing so may have been a mistake.”

Pierce grips his hand. “No,” he says simply. “You were trying to look after him. No one can blame you for that - not even you.”

“The next day was,” he fumbles, searching for a word. “Not ‘easy’ but manageable. I cared for their men. Klinger handed me things. Sometimes I would squeeze his hand to offer comfort or hope. We were hungry, of course. Tired. Hurt. They would not let me see to him or to our wounded, no matter how I begged.”

“Not big believers in the Geneva Conventions, I take it?”

“No.”

“Stop a minute. Rest.” Winchester’s body language tells him this is about to get bad.

“Anything I can do to help?”

“Not unless reading Radar’s cast off comic books have schooled you in the construction of a time machine.”

“My form of evil genius is limited to strategic holes in the nurses’ showers,” Pierce reminds him, forcing the signature impish grin he does not feel.

Charles sighs. “I don’t hate you, Pierce.”

“I never thought you did.”

“It would be much easier to drag you through the rest if I did. Right now it’s mine - this ugliness, this horror. Why should you go without sleep, too?”

“I offered to be here. We took the same oath. I can’t leave you drowning in this black water, Charles. Not and call myself a doctor. And you’re wrong.”

“Wrong?”

“It’s not just yours. It never was. It’s Klinger’s, too.”

The words enter into him like a shell; they ricochet off of every wounded part. “The next day, some important figures arrived. I cannot say if they were Chinese or Korean. I do not remember the decorations they wore. I only remember a change in the air, the respect they commanded. Their attention landed on Corporal Klinger. You remember what he was wearing when we left?”

Hawkeye does and when it comes to Klinger fashion it was actually fairly low key: a nurse’s dress uniform with its walnut tunic and brass buttons... and its skirt.

“I see.”

“We were separated from the other prisoners, myself, Klinger, and our interpreter. The beatings began.”

“You stepped in front of him.” Pierce can see it with a radical, haunting clarity. Klinger is bleeding. “That explains the ribs. The bruises.”

“Yes. It helped, at first. I was able to shield him a bit. Then it became a game.”

Pierce’s mental film show plays on; for the first time in his life, he regrets being part of the movie generation. It’s made him good at this. Too good. He envisions Charles whirling desperately, being struck, trying to turn, trying to make himself a bulwark for the slighter man who has the misfortune to be acting as his corpsman that day. He is soon outnumbered and rendered powerless.

All surgeons have a bit of a God complex. They must. Charles has slightly more than most. Pierce knows what it must have done to him to have failed in that moment; it’s the human equivalent of Lucifer’s fall from on high. _You were still there, still as gifted as you’ve always been, but all your light had gone out. And you tried to reason through it: why was this happening to you? But no answer came. Just blood. Pain. And you were unable to stop it despite all your training and all your skill_.

“That night...” His strength flags, but he recovers before Pierce considers prodding him. He’s decided to see this through. “That night, we were thrown into these makeshift cells - cages, really. My hands were bound and my neck was in some sort of hoop staked to the ground. When no one was watching, Klinger cupped his hands together, filled them with water, and held them through the bars to my lips. The moon was there in his palms. I know it was a reflection, but it seemed to have a taste, also.” A shuddering breath escapes and Pierce knows he is fighting tears. “Sugared moonlight. It was the best water I’ve ever tasted in my life.”

He knows he will never see Klinger’s hands again, not full of life, anyway. He’s made Pierce promise as much. _Keep him sedated until I can be away. Please, Pierce. Please_.

A tear wends down his cheek; heaven’s chiefest angels couldn’t have said whether he shed it for himself or for Klinger.

“That was the last happy moment of my life.”

Pierce gestures for him to take up the cognac. He drinks deeply and wishes the liquid sliding down his throat tasted like the water he’d drunk from cupped palms, chilled by snowy light.

“The next day, I learned the Korean word for wife. Do you know it, Pierce?”

“Anae.”

“Yes. Can you fit the pieces together?”

It’s a request for help and Pierce recognizes it. “Klinger was in a skirt. You tried to protect Klinger. Your captors decided that hurting him was the most effective way to punish you... and it also punished him for stepping outside of the norm.”

“Yes. I knew what they wanted me to do before the interpreter finished speaking. I could see it in their eyes.” His hands grip the side of the chair, make fists in the blankets. “The interpreter was kind. He said to make it a show, suggested they would spare us if we proved entertaining. I told Klinger to pretend to fight. To cry. By the end, he wasn’t pretending.”

Pierce’s fingers close on his forearm; he presses his forehead against Charles in a gesture meant to offer solidarity and absolution. He feels the other man’s tears on his face.

“It went on again the next day,” Charles goes on when Pierce draws back. “That night, I went through my kit bag. I filled a syringe. It would have been enough, but I knew...”

“You knew that with you gone, they’d just find someone else to hurt him.”

“Yes.”

“So you chose life again. I told you you’re a good doctor.”

“The UN forces got us out the next day. I helped those wounded, too. Klinger was right back beside me. I emptied the syringe then and refilled it with amobarbital. I would like to be able to say that I did this to confer upon Klinger the rest he sorely needed, but I did it selfishly. I could not treat the men around me if I had to suffer, too, the pain in his eyes.”

“You shouldn’t have been treating anybody! Couldn’t they see you were hurt?!?”

“A shell obliterated the place in which we were being kept. It killed our tormentors.” He bows his head. “It killed our kind interpreter. I never even knew the man’s name.”

Hawkeye crosses the tent and opens his own kit bag. He fills the syringe beyond the dose he needs; barbiturates typically grant dreamless sleep and Charles has earned a stay from nightmares. “Before I give you this, I need to know what you want me to ask Potter for. A transfer? I think he’ll fight to get you back to Tokyo for this, if Tokyo is where you want to go.”

Charles feels like he is being strangled from within. “I want...” he fights for air. “I want whatever is best for Klinger. He’ll never see the men who ordered this ever again. They’re dead. His gaze should be equally free from the man who carried those orders out. I trust Potter and will abide by whatever decision he reaches - provided it is the best decision for Max.”

The contents of the needle are expelled into his vein; nothingness takes him.

Pierce kisses his brow. There is no sarcasm or jest in the line he borrows, now, from four hundred years ago: “Good night, sweet prince.”

***

“Klinger? Klinger lad?”

“He’s starting to come around. The two of you- out!”

Potter doesn’t enjoy donning the role of commanding officer (traditional army) and he doesn’t do it very often. But he’s read the notes Pierce wrote up. He knows, now, what his men suffered. As he tries to make it right, he doesn’t need an audience. And neither does Klinger. Pierce and Hunnicutt go. Potter hopes they will shore up Winchester. The Major looks, lately, like a man waiting for a death sentence to be handed down. When Potter tried to comfort the man, Winchester had confided, “Sir, I wish I had died at that aid station.” 

Klinger’s dark eyes begin to clear. His voice is hoarse from underuse. “Colonel?” Confusion contorts his features.

“You’re safe, son. Back at the 4077.” He strokes the arm of Klinger’s robe. “We dressed you up in some of your things. Thought it might perk you up a bit.”

“Thanks.” Klinger rubs his throat. Potter holds a glass of ice water to his lips. 

He knows what he’s come here to ask - what he needs to ask - but he wishes he could avoid it, wishes Friedman was with him. “Klinger, you’ve weathered a horrible ordeal and I want to let you get back to resting as soon as I can. But there’s something I need to ask you.” 

All that he’s undergone hasn’t changed Klinger. Sensing his CO’s distress, he hurries to dispel it. “I’m okay, sir. Promise. You don’t have to treat me like glass.” Klinger knows he’s been tended by one of the surgeons at the 4077 - maybe all of them - so he also knows that they’ve already read what happened to him in his skin. 

Potter squeezes his arm, both offering him strength and saluting the strength he’s showing by not flinching away from what’s gone before. “Klinger, I need to hear it from you. What do you want me to do about Major Winchester?” 

Klinger’s face goes ghastly white. He grapples for Potter’s hand. Drugged and aching, he had forgotten about Winchester for a time. “Is he okay? Sir? Did he get out? They beat him so badly... Oh, God, sir... he’s alright, isn’t he?” 

“Easy, easy, son. The UN forces got you both out. Winchester’s hurt, sure, but he’ll mend up just fine.” Potter hopes this isn’t a lie. 

Klinger sinks back down. Potter thinks it’s a silent prayer that his lips are moving over. He makes a note to send Mulcahy- and soon. The Corporal’s head turns against the pillow. “Sorry, sir. What is it you wanted to ask me?” 

“I don’t want to drag you back down the dark road you traveled, Klinger. But I want to do what’s best for you. Do you want me to transfer Winchester out of here? You won’t have to see him again.” 

Klinger’s eyes change so rapidly that Potter thinks, for a moment, that an injury has reopened (even though he knows this is impossible; some of Pierce’s best stitches are holding Klinger together). “Colonel, what are you talking about?! I’m only still here because the Major looked out for me! He didn’t do anything wrong!” 

Potter hates to do it, but he reminds Klinger that he knows what was done to him. He tells him about Winchester’s report. 

Klinger fights back a surge of wild emotion. “Colonel, you’re not listening. Yeah, that stuff happened. But the Major didn’t want to do it! They had a whole bunch of guns to his head!” His grip tightens. “You believe me, don’t you, sir? It’s the truth!” 

“I believe you. You understand why I have to ask? I’m the CO, son. I have to do what’s best for everyone under my command.” 

Klinger calms a little. “Sir, if the Major wants a transfer, send him. He’s earned one ten times over. But don’t send him because of me. And don’t let him go before I can tell him thank you. He saved my life.” 

Potter promises. He feels sorry for both of his formerly lost lambs, but Klinger has made him feel a bit better, anyway. He leaves with a slightly lighter heart. 

***

Winchester comes to Klinger’s bedside because after what they went through together he can refuse him nothing. He is flanked by - literally supported by - Pierce and Hunnicutt - and he moves like a creature in terrible pain. The surgeons lending him their strength know that his physical wounds have mostly healed; they refuse to speculate on how long it will take for the others to mend. 

“Max.” They have lived with Charles for nearly a year, but neither Pierce nor Hunnicutt has ever heard him sound like this. 

Klinger turns at the sound of his name; light floods his eyes. When Charles sinks down before him, it is, for the watching surgeons, like seeing a centuries-old oak brought low in the absence of either lightning or wind. Though he’s suffered most, Klinger is the one who maintains his composure best; he holds the taller man to him, stroking his hair while Charles weeps into his lap. 

Hawkeye catches Klinger’s eyes over Charles’ head. Klinger gives a quick little nod. “I’ve got this,” the expression says. Hawkeye surprises him by offering a salute. The gesture isn’t just for taking care of Charles - it’s also for his suffering and his survival, and for the incredible gentleness in his hands as he knits Charles back together through touch. 

Minutes pass. Winchester quiets, looks up with still-streaming eyes. “Max...”

“Hi.” 

“I am so sorry, Max. So sorry.” 

Klinger rubs the back of his neck. “You’re forgiven.” 

Winchester blinks tears from his eyes. “ _How can you say that_?” 

“Because it’s the truth. You didn’t do those things. You did everything you could to keep me safe, not to hurt me. You think I didn’t notice?” 

“But I did hurt you. Terribly. And I’ll do anything to make it right.” 

“You already did, Major. We walked away from it. We’re still here. We’ll heal.”

If he was feeling at all like himself, Winchester would berate him for such impossible optimism. “You are quite certain that you do not wish for me to go?” 

“The only thing I want you to do is feel better, Charles. You will, now, right? I won’t know what to do with myself in post op if you aren’t there to insult my intelligence and keep Captain Pierce in line.”

Charles discovers that his voice is thick with emotion but he ignores it to say, “I give you my word as a Winchester.”

And he will try now, if it takes him the rest of his life. What he will also do, he silently promises, is look after this gentle creature that fate has tied him to with such strange bonds, atoning as best he can. Maybe someday it will be enough.

End!


End file.
